Getting humans back to the moon "this time to stay" will require the exploitation of lunar resources, NASA officials and exploration advocates say.
The most important resource, at least in the short term, is water ice, which is abundant on the floors of permanently shadowed polar craters. The ice found in these "cold traps" is thought to be stable and accessible.
But there may be other spots on the moon that could yield a mother lode of scientific data as well as the resources needed to sustain human occupation of Earth's celestial next door neighbor.
Related: Home on the Moon: How to Build a Lunar Colony (Infographic)
Researchers have identified "pits" on the moon, which are likely lava-tube "skylights" geological doorways to underground tunnels that were once filled with lava.
If they do indeed provide access to lava tubes, skylights could be a game-changer for human lunar exploration, said NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green. Lava tubes are protected from the harsh environment of the lunar surface, which is bombarded by radiation and experiences temperature extremes. One lunar day lasts about 29 Earth days, meaning surface locations endure about two straight weeks of daylight followed by two weeks of darkness.
"There are a number of things on the moon that are going to be surprises," Green said.
"We need to get in there," he added, referring to lunar skylights. "We need to verify. Maybe there's a lot of water in these skylights? We don't know. We're finding them all over the moon."
A lava-tube network would suggest protected corridors, free of temperature swings, bombarding radiation and menacing meteoroids. They also might offer a much larger habitat capability for future moon explorers.
"We could actually build connective roads in them," Green told Space.com. "It could be a whole new world for us. That's another absolute game-changer."
We don't have enough information yet to ascertain if skylights on the moon represent an interconnected underground roadway, said Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute. He is also chairman of the Mars Institute and director of the NASA Haughton Mars Project at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.
"For starters, not all pits on the moon are necessarily lava tube skylights," Lee told Space.com. He said that some might be associated with isolated underground cavities.
"Secondly, not all lava tubes in a given region should be expected to be interconnected," he added. "Indeed, some might have formed at different times, and might run at different levels or depths underground."
Lee also said that while some lava tubes on Earth have smooth walls and floors, most have very rough surfaces and debris piles on their floors.
"We don't know how rough lava tubes on the moon might be, but the term underground roadway seems optimistic," Lee said. "In any case, in my view, it's not that pits on the moon would lead to a maze of underground corridors that makes them most interesting although that is fascinating but the fact that they give access to an environment that's radically different from the surface, whatever shape that underground environment might have."
Any underground cavity on the moon, after all, would provide shielding from temperature swings, space radiation, micrometeoritic bombardment and sandblasting from the rocket engines of landing or departing spacecraft.
Most intriguing to Lee are candidate pits recently identified inside Philolaus Crater near the north pole of the moon.
"They might be skylights associated with a network of lava tubes formed not in volcanic lava flows, but in an impact melt sheet, the temporary pool of molten rock that ponded inside Philolaus Crater following the large impact that created the crater," he said.
Interestingly enough, Lee said, the candidate pits inside Philolaus are located at such a high latitude that sunlight would never enter the underlying caves.
"These would be in perpetual darkness and so cold that ice could be cold-trapped in them, much like it is in the permanently shadowed regions at the actual poles of the moon," Lee said.
Exploring high-latitude pits on the moon might therefore offer an additional opportunity to harvest water on our lunar neighbor, Lee said.
Meanwhile, researchers have begun assessing the viability of underground lunar habitats.
Anahita Modiriasari, a postdoctoral researcher in Purdue University's Lyles School of Civil Engineering, and her colleagues have been appraising lunar imagery, reconstructed into a 3D model to evaluate lava tubes as a potential habitat for humans on the moon. This is a task that a rover or drone could potentially accomplish on the lunar surface.
The work is part of Purdue's Resilient ExtraTerrestrial Habitats (RETH), a project that investigates the value of future human habitats on the moon or Mars.
"All of this collected data is vital," Modiriasari said. "We are using it to build an advanced model of the size, strength and structural stability of the lava tube," she said. For example, what happens during seismic activity? What would happen if a meteorite strikes?
Related: Photos: The Search for Water on the Moon
In another development, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program recently awarded a Phase 3 contract to researchers developing robotic technologies to enable the exploration of lunar pits.
The "Skylight" concept mission is led by William Whittaker of Carnegie Mellon University. The NIAC award will help Whittaker and his team flesh out ways to explore and model a lunar pit. Doing so will require fast, autonomous micro-roving, which achieves significant exploration in a single lunar daylight period.
According to Whittaker, descent into and exploration of the lunar subsurface will come, but "pit-specific" questions must first be answered from the surface: How navigable are the rims? Are there caves? Are there rappel routes? What is the morphology?
Specifically, a mission of this type would create and downlink the first high-resolution, science-quality, 3D model of a vast planetary pit, Whittaker said.
"This [Skylight] initiative matures and transitions that technology. The technology innovations are exploration autonomy, in-situ 3D modeling, fast, far micro-roving and the aggregate means to achieve mission-in-a-week," Whittaker said.
The unanswered questions of lava-tube exploration aren't just technological. Also looming large, as with all aspects of lunar resource use and settlement, are space-law issues.
"Potentially exciting research areas cannot be claimed by sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means," said Joanne Gabrynowicz, professor emerita of space law at the University of Mississippi and editor-in-chief emerita at the Journal of Space Law.
"Doing things like digging corridors and building roads could easily be interpreted as making a claim by use or other means. This is prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty," Gabrynowicz said. "The U.S. and all spacefaring nations are party to it. A location with high scientific value will require an international agreement regarding its use and who can access it."
Leonard David is author of the recently released book, "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" published by National Geographic in May 2019. A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
Read the original:
Living Underground on the Moon: How Lava Tubes Could Aid Lunar Colonization
- A Murder At The End Of The World's Retreat Guests Explained: Who ... - Screen Rant - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- The Moon People: Assimilation and the Jewish Literary Transvestite - Tablet Magazine - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- Will two generations of Moon walkers shake hands? - OnlySky Media - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- SpaceX Prepares for Second Starship Launch as it Eyes Moon and ... - OPP.Today - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- Invincible Season 2 Episode 3 Review - But Why Tho? - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- TV Recap: "A Murder at the End of the World" - Chapter 1: Homme ... - Laughing Place - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- Thursday: Hili dialogue Why Evolution Is True - Why Evolution Is True - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- Space Habitat Market to grow by USD 169.38 million from 2023 to ... - PR Newswire - November 18th, 2023 [November 18th, 2023]
- Cosmic conservation: Why experts argue portions of the solar ... - Salon - September 11th, 2023 [September 11th, 2023]
- We havent even set foot on Mars and we are already setting up a ... - Softonic EN - September 11th, 2023 [September 11th, 2023]
- NASA's MOXIE Experiment Triumphs in Generating Oxygen ... - The Weather Channel - September 11th, 2023 [September 11th, 2023]
- ECOVIEWS: Thermal vents produce bizarre life forms | Features ... - Charleston Post Courier - September 11th, 2023 [September 11th, 2023]
- Elon Musk's 'most powerful rocket ever made' is finally ready for launch - Technext - September 11th, 2023 [September 11th, 2023]
- What's the Bare Minimum Number of People for a Mars Habitat? - Universe Today - September 11th, 2023 [September 11th, 2023]
- India may be moving to change its name to ancient Sanskrit term ... - FOX Bangor/ABC 7 News and Stories - September 11th, 2023 [September 11th, 2023]
- My Nuclear Family - The Good Men Project - September 11th, 2023 [September 11th, 2023]
- The MCU Multiverse Is Continuing A Great Marvel Trend - Screen Rant - April 30th, 2023 [April 30th, 2023]
- How Starship Will Change Humanity Soon - by Tomas Pueyo - Uncharted Territories - April 30th, 2023 [April 30th, 2023]
- China is taking 3D printers to the moon - TechRadar - April 27th, 2023 [April 27th, 2023]
- Mae Martins SAP showcases affirming, optimistic humor - The Wellesley News - April 27th, 2023 [April 27th, 2023]
- Of Moths and Marsupials - bioGraphic - April 27th, 2023 [April 27th, 2023]
- Teachers Rejoice! OpenAI Released Tool to Catch ChatGPT Writing - January 31st, 2023 [January 31st, 2023]
- Are You Smarter Than ChatGPT? OpenAI Tool Aims to Detect AI-Generated ... - January 31st, 2023 [January 31st, 2023]
- What is Artificial Intelligence (AI) ? | IBM - January 31st, 2023 [January 31st, 2023]
- Overview | Earth's Moon NASA Solar System Exploration - January 27th, 2023 [January 27th, 2023]
- Moon Phases | Moon in Motion Moon: NASA Science - January 27th, 2023 [January 27th, 2023]
- All About the Moon | NASA Space Place NASA Science for Kids - January 27th, 2023 [January 27th, 2023]
- January 21, 2023: Closest New Moon Since the Middle Ages - January 27th, 2023 [January 27th, 2023]
- Colonization of Europa - Wikipedia - January 4th, 2023 [January 4th, 2023]
- American Colonization Society | abolitionist organization - January 4th, 2023 [January 4th, 2023]
- Deimos (moon) - Wikipedia - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Everything NASA is taking to the moon before colonizing Mars - December 21st, 2022 [December 21st, 2022]
- Chinese Lunar Exploration Program - Wikipedia - December 21st, 2022 [December 21st, 2022]
- Moon - Wikipedia - November 23rd, 2022 [November 23rd, 2022]
- Artemis is our first step toward space colonization - Big Think - November 21st, 2022 [November 21st, 2022]
- Supermoon - Wikipedia - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Captain Kirk Went to Space and Saw Absolutely Nothing - TheStranger.com - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- We'koqma'q First Nation helps keep tradition alive with ribbon skirt bank - CBC.ca - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Review: Andor Episode 6 gives a heartbreaking victory to the rebels of Aldhani - Winter is Coming - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- National Indigenous Peoples Day 2022: Everything to Know - Newsweek - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Who's the enemy here? - The Korea JoongAng Daily - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Avatar: Where We Were and Where We're at The Minnesota Republic - Kent Kaiser - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Glitching Time and Time-Based Media The Brooklyn Rail - Brooklyn Rail - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- New Artwork on the Toronto Sign Pays Tribute to the Rights of Indigenous Language Speakers Worldwide - Storeys - September 29th, 2022 [September 29th, 2022]
- Is it finally time for a permanent base on the moon? - Popular Science - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Venice Review: In Viaggio is a Fascinating Rorschach Test of the Pope - The Film Stage - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Bon Apptit's 2022 Heads of the Table Awards - Bon Appetit - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Coast Salish sweat-lodge keeper welcomes all to share in healing - Broadview Magazine - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- In Guam, even the dead are dying: the US military is building on the graves of our ancestors - The Guardian - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Colonization of the Solar System - Wikipedia - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Under Capitalism, the Colonization of Space Means the ... - Jacobin - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- A New World of Heavenly Art - The Epoch Times - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- New Releases Tuesday: The Best Books Out This Week - Book Riot - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Diving into student research at the Summer 2022 SEA Fellows Symposium - UMaine News - University of Maine - University of Maine - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Skywatch for the week of August 22, 2022 - WQCS - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Law alum's career heads into orbit with unexpected passion for space law - University of Calgary - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Heres where we might really be able to set up a colony on the Moon - BGR - August 10th, 2022 [August 10th, 2022]
- Elon Musk's Flawed Vision and the Dangers of Trusting Billionaires - TIME - August 10th, 2022 [August 10th, 2022]
- Travel Bug: You don't have to be a diver to enjoy Palau - Pacific Daily News - August 10th, 2022 [August 10th, 2022]
- Avatar Was James Cameron's Tribute To A Legend Of VFX Filmmaking - /Film - July 31st, 2022 [July 31st, 2022]
- Sonic Youth : Sister, EVOL, Bad Moon Rising - The trilogy | Treble - Treble - July 31st, 2022 [July 31st, 2022]
- NASA's Lunar Orbiter spots comfortably warm 'pits' all over the Moon - The Register - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Will 3D Printing Be Used for the First Commercial Mission to Mars? - 3Dnatives - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Abe Leaves Behind Complex Legacy in Japan's Neighborhood - The Diplomat - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Moon Off-Roading In The Wild GM Electric Car That Makes Hummer EV Look Normal - SlashGear - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- A conversation with a poet whose home burned to the ground - Yale Climate Connections - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- Before Langley Air Force Base: The muddy history of Shellbanks, Sherwood and other plantations of Elizabeth City County - Daily Press - June 30th, 2022 [June 30th, 2022]
- colonization of Australia | Britannica - June 24th, 2022 [June 24th, 2022]
- NASA Reveals Three Design Concepts For Nuclear Power On The Moon - SlashGear - June 24th, 2022 [June 24th, 2022]
- Interview: Small modular reactors get a reality check about their waste - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - June 22nd, 2022 [June 22nd, 2022]
- Of Wazhazhe Land and Language: The Ongoing Project of Ancestral Work - Literary Hub - June 22nd, 2022 [June 22nd, 2022]
- The Oddest of Organs: A Brief History of the Tongue - Literary Hub - June 22nd, 2022 [June 22nd, 2022]
- 'For All Mankind' Season 3: Episode 2 - Recap And Ending, Explained - Who Was Chosen To Head The Mars Mission? | DMT - DMT - June 20th, 2022 [June 20th, 2022]
- New moon - Wikipedia - June 11th, 2022 [June 11th, 2022]
- Why Neil deGrasse Tyson Is Skeptical About Mars Colonization - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- Bitcoin And The Great Filter - Bitcoin Magazine - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- Art Attack: Where to Find Art on First Friday Weekend in Denver - Westword - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- Scramble Campbell on His Two Decades as Red Rocks' Artist-in-Residence - Westword - June 3rd, 2022 [June 3rd, 2022]
- Pro and Con: Space Colonization | Britannica - May 31st, 2022 [May 31st, 2022]
- How Many Humans Could the Moon Support? | Live Science - May 31st, 2022 [May 31st, 2022]